JOYCE BAKER PORTE
WAVEFRONT PRODUCTIONS
THE BOOKS
THE TANGANYIKA TRILOGY: Three generations of five ethnicities cross as Tanganyika enters the twentieth century. African customs clash with new Western ideas, and children deal with the turmoil.
STORMBIRD OF THE SERENGETI: A collection of short stories of the people who live and choreograph their lives around the harsh beauty of the Serengeti, that great mother of man and beast.
BEYOND THE SHADOWS: An American girl, traumatized by the Mau Mau insurgency in 1953 Kenya, elopes with a stranger and experiences great personal loss befor finding peace.
Book I
Tanganyika Trilogy
ISBN # o-9773252-1-0
East Africa, 1905
An Ancient Maasai legend rests on an infant girl orphaned by a smallpox epidemic. Rebeka, adopted by German missionaries, is trapped between two cultures with a burden she cannot bear--the legend's fulfillment that she alone inherits. Around her swirl the events of the early twentieth century: a massive rebellion, a world war, and the transfer of her country from German to British control. Rebeka's responsibility to the legend is ultimately decided by a landmark case in His Majesty's Court, where German missionaries, an Italian exile, British colonials, and tribal customs clash.
This first book of the TANGANYIKA TRILOGY reveals the heart of Rebeka who straddles two cultures, not belonging to either one.
Book II
Tanganyika Trilogy
East Africa 1930-1944
Miriam Fernaldi is born into the world with three strikes against her. She is a girl in the decades between the two World Wars when few girls were considered worthy of higher education. She is mixed race; her father is Italian and her mother is Maasai. She is also the last living descendent of a renowned tribal leader and bears the burden of a crippling legend.
From age seven onward, Miriam's life consists of losses, grief, and discrimination. But her determination and intelligence urge her onward toward her goal: to become a doctor, perhaps the first African woman doctor in the British Empire.
Book III
Tanganyika Trilogy
ISBN #978-0-9773252-0-7
Seven childhood friends, five ethnic and national background, and an East African country on the cusp of independence from Britain, make a startling combinations. Add the Blind Poet of Tanganyika, the ruined slave-trading city of Kilwa, and an Italian winery. Will an ancient Maaai prophecy drive them apart? And will the diseases of leprosy and polio weaken or strengthen them?
This final book of the Tanganyika Trilogy brings the Maasai legend forward into the twenty-first century, as Michel, the Son of the One True Lion discoverds his destiny.